Duke Energy and the US Navy plan a new solar energy park at Crane Naval Area in the coming months/years.

I have been wishing for this for a long time now. As an Environmental Scientist and Conservation of Natural Resource Major from Purdue University I for a long time wanted to see us start doing more renewable energy projects to lower the amount of coal that we have to burn. Coal is the dirties fuel (Carbon Fuel) and it's very expensive to clean the emissions going to the air when we burn coal. First you have to wash the coal to get the inorganic sulfur out of the coal along with other heavy particles. The heavy particles sink to the bottom of a wash tank when crushed coal is put into a big tank of water. The coal being lighter float and can be skimmed off the top and then dried before being stockpiled or shipped to the coal fired generator plant to be burned. The coal is turned into a power and then blown into the furnace and burned while being suspended in the air. Yet even more cleaning of the flue gases have to be done to clean the emission before they are forced into the atmosphere.

Years ago we built tall smoke stacks and released the emission high up in the air where the winds would carry them far away. Emissions being released in the Midwest have been traced all the way to the USA's East Coast. Sulfur in the emissions creates sulfates that can travel hundreds of mile and destroy trees via acid rain deposition in the Smokey Mountains. I've seen the damaged trees on Mt Laconte in the Smokes.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Smok...ddress&ie=&oe=

So now is the time to start building up the alternative energy resources. Why now? Well we need to start the transition to these new sources of energy sooner rather than later. One reason is that coal is becoming more expensive compared to other carbon based fuels such as natural gas. Actually it's natural gas and it's abundance and clean burning that's forcing the coal companies to head to court to file for financial relief.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/375516501.xhtml

We won't be able to do away with coal any time soon. And the sun does not always shine. But batteries that can save the solar energy that's being generated while the sun shines are being developed and they can save the energy to use when the skies are cloudy. These new batteries are going to revolutionize the way we work and live in the future.
Sand which is composed of silicon dioxide or worn down quartz rock is being used to create better solar panels that are more efficient and generate more electricity than before. New processes that help to purify the SiO2 help make more efficient solar panels. With these new solar panels we can capture more of the sunlight and create more electrons to store in the new more efficient batteries.

Tesla Company is making new electric cars that work on these newer and more efficient batteries. They have one electric car that can go from 0 to 60 mph in under 4 seconds. I think it was actually 3.x something seconds to get to 60 mph. Yes the world is a changing.

https://www.teslamotors.com/

The US Government has been using solar energy in space and also fuel cells as well. Fuel cells are another form of alternative energy. A fuel cell takes Hydrogen gas (H) and adds it to oxygen in the air and creates pure water as the only byproduct plus free electrons. The electrons can charge batteries or run electric motors. Many forward looking countries such as Germany and Sweden are making fuel cell powered submarines that can be a "HOLE IN THE OCEAN" and are so quiet (less moving parts) that they are very hard to find in the ocean. These new submarines can stay submerged for up to two weeks at a time. During WWII German Submarines were a threat to all shipping in the World's Oceans but they could not stay submerged for very long and that was their weakness. We destroyed many of them on the surface using newly developed radar on our planes to find and destroy these submarines at night while they were trying to recharge their batteries while running on their diesel engines. Today's modern fuel cell submarines don't need to surface to recharge their batteries as often and are much more lethal. The world will see how lethal they are if they ever go to war. The USA would be wise to build these new types of submarine too.

And fuel cells can also be used to power our homes and automobiles. Yes they make fuel cell powered automobiles too.

You can fuel up your car with hydrogen that you make at home and then drive all day long to work and back and not pollute the air at all. All you are doing is taking water and converting it to hydrogen and oxygen and then recombining those two gases to make electricity and we use the sunlight to do this job. The sunlight is free too.

I'm not sure how long it's going to take to transform America's power grid but we are finally making a good start with this project and other's like this.